A fool's bet

A creationist kinesiologist named Mastropaolo is getting his 15 minutes of fame by publically challenging “evolutionists” to bet $10,000 with him that they can’t disprove
Genesis, and a hand picked superior court judge gets to decide.This is almost criminally stupid.His challenge is based on the false premise
that an either-or dichotomy exists, i.e., if not evolution, then Genesis.But if not evolution, why not Valhalla or the Dream time?Now there’s a reason that we don’t take our
scientific findings to court; judges don’t know squat about science and are no
better than anyone else at deciding what data means or why it is critical.The whole legal concept of evidence is quite
different from evidence in science.Might as well challenge this guy to prove that the Norse gods don’t
exist, especially on next Thors’day.Now of course the whole purpose of this exercise is so he can crow about
how no one took him up on his challenge, a result that clearly demonstrates the
vacuity of science.Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist
that independently thought of the idea of natural selection, got sucked into a
similar challenge to prove that the surface of the Earth wasn’t flat.Wallace had a clever idea.He knew of a straight canal with series of
bridges in a row.He affixed a stick to
each bridge the exact same height above the level surface of the water.Then backing off one more bridge, Wallace set
up a telescope, and voila, the top of each successively further stick was slightly lower than
the previous showing that the surface of the "flat" canal was
curved by a measurable amount.Independent witnesses concluded that Wallace had demonstrated that the
surface of the Earth was not flat, but the challenger claimed he could see
nothing in the telescope and wouldn’t pay up.And similar blind justice is just what our kinesiologist wants as well; nothing you can say or
demonstrate scientifically will disprove anything about Genesis.And who cares? The bet isjust setting up a straw man so it can be
knocked down.Science has pretty high
standards of evidence, and you don’t get to ignore any of it.If you don’t like an explanation, you must
propose a different one that accounts for everything.This is too tough a game for Mastropaolo, so
he wants a different playing field, one that isn’t used in science because
rigging the game is the only way he will play, and this tells you all you
need to know about him.

Phactor Phollowers

About Me

When not otherwise occupied, this author works as an academic botanist, a purveyor of plant diversity, taxonomy, economic botany, and rain forest ecology. The opinions expressed in this blog represent only my own and are in no way connected to the policies of my employer or state whoever they may be. No public resources were used to create this blog although many more foolish things have been done with public monies. Queries, questions, can be emailed to: phytophactor at googlemail (which is abbreviated to gmail) dot com.